Question

A relationship in which one organism is benefited while other is neither benefited nor harmed is known as
a. Commensalism
b. Mutualism
c. Parasitism
d. Symbiosis

Answer 1

Hint: Generally in the ecosystem, a lot of organisms depend on each other for nutrition, shelter, and for many benefits, and these relationships of organisms are their interactions that may happen among the same species or between different species.

Complete answer:
The biological interactions between the organisms for their benefits are called symbiosis and the organisms that depend are called symbionts and they are of two types, obligate and facultative. Obligate symbiosis means both the organisms entirely depend on each other for their survival. Facultative symbiosis means both of the organisms can live independently also. Based on the attachment they called either conjunctive or disjunctive. So the symbiosis is the wrong answer.

> Mutualism: In this type of symbiotic relation, both organisms depend on each other and they both benefit each other and the example of the Mutualism is a large number of microbes which lives in the gut of the herbivores, where they obtain nutrition from the herbivores and these herbivores unable to digest the plant proteins as they are complex, so this gut microbe helps in the proper digestion, so they both obtain benefits, so this is the wrong answer.

> Commensalism: This is the type of symbiotic relationship where the organisms which live together, they won’t obtain any benefit to other biological organism and at the same time they won’t harm each other, and the examples of commensalism are hermit crabs lives on the shells gastropod shells, so it is the correct answer.

> Parasitism: In this symbiotic relation, the organism which depends on the nutrition is a parasite, and the other if host, where these parasites obtain nutrition from the host, and in return, they also harm the host, for example, plasmodium. So this is also the wrong answer.

Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: The types of biological relationships or biological interactions are recognized as important selective factors behind evolution and many species have a long history of interdependent Coevolution.